Designed to provide activities that increase the understanding, assessment, development, and utilization of aerospace resources and to expand the educational, scientific, and research base of all aerospace-related fields.

Jim Arnold Lecture 2015

ABSTRACT

Geoengineering: No Hope or Planet’s Last Hope?

Dr. Marcia McNutt
Editor-in-Chief
Science Magazine

Carbon emissions continue to increase globally despite growing concerns on the impacts on climate. Two broad categories of interventions in the climate system have been proposed as methods of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change: carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and albedo modification, otherwise known as solar radiation management (SRM). Questions remain as to whether the CDR techniques can be scaled up to the problem at hand, are affordable, and can work fast enough. Albedo modification can be deployed cheaply with relatively quick effects, but the risks are not entirely known, quantified, or manageable.